Cradle to Vvardenfell
by Exuviae
Summary: Short story taking place between Daggerfall and Morrowind. It's about my main character from TES2 raising my main character from TES3. Hopefully it isn't utter trash? I'm new to this. Expect heartwarming.
1. Chapter 1

_From my earliest years, I have yearned for novelty, for rarity, for adventure. In the small town of Umbaaqwan in the kingdom of Sentinel I was born and raised, daughter to laughably Imperial parents whose own relatives regarded them as traitors to their Redguard heritage. And so it was that I came to be named 'Lellynhall', a name my mother and father seemed to have chosen at random from a book, deciding that it sounded 'Imperial' enough._  
_As could be expected, this name did not serve me well in my youth. The divided family of idiots, and the taunts of the children were enough to convince me to depart from Umbaaqwan, but it was my own wanderlust that drove me further, to the Imperial City. But that is another story, I suppose._  
_Rarity. As much as I try to convince myself that I am motivated by avarice, I cannot truly bring myself to believe it. Money is well and fine, the more gold the merrier, but I know that is not the reason for the life I have chosen, a life of dungeon delving and exploration. I want to be excited, thrilled, nervous, and so on. I want to discover lost cities and ancient artifacts in which are woven magicks beyond comprehension. Why? Because I would be bored, otherwise._  
_On my person at most times are all manner of rare artifacts from my travels: a full set of ebony armor, an enchanted cloak, a Daedric longsword, and, embarrassingly, a brassiere that grants me the power of levitation. All these, and more, I have found in my travels. Yet, not all of rarity is worth having. The Vampire's Disease, the Knahaten Flu, and other rare maladies come to mind. However, there are other, far worse things of rarity to come into possession of. An Elven child, for instance._

The infant stirred softly in her arms, quivering with...something. Was she going to cry? Was she sick? A cold, collywobbles, what?  
The infant sneezed.  
"Ridiculous," Lellynhall muttered, looking down at the baby. She grabbed the child by the cheeks in her approximation of gentleness and turned her this way and that, inspecting her small, fragile face. Her skin was like ash, and her hair like blood; typical of her race.  
A Dunmer child with a Redguard mother. The thought would be amusing if it were someone else's responsibility. And scandalous, at that. It was the third era, the four-hundred-and-tenth year, and in the generally cosmopolitan and liberal atmosphere of the Niben. Still, her new responsibility was bound to raise eyebrows. Lellynhall took her eyes off the infant and stared outside the carriage window.  
"Motherhood won't change me," she thought. "That's what my mother would have told me, to embrace my 'natural role' in life. To be a wife, a mother, a homemaker, and all those other things I so despise. The 'Feelings of Motherhood' my mother spoke of are nowhere to be found. My womb does not instill in me a magical desire to raise a child from its wriggling larval stage, nor does it instill in me a desire to darn socks and toil at a loom. My heart was made for harder, grander things."  
Lellynhall took her eyes off the approaching town of Weye, White-Gold Tower in the distance, and glanced back down at the child. She seemed to have opened her eyes while she was looking away.  
Her eyelids drooped and strained to stay open, but, there they were, the typical Dunmer eyes, red as fire.  
"Endryn," Lellynhall thought, shaking her head. "I never even loved him. If this waif is anything like her father, though, I may be tempted to pass her off just as he did."  
Lellynhall reached into her haversack and pulled out a worn note, giving it a, hopefully, final read.

_Lelly,_

_Ranosa and I have had a child together. Wait, actually, that's probably not the best way to start..._

_Lellynhall,_

_Ignore that first part. I'm in a hurry, and I don't have time to write another note. Ranosa had a child. I may or may not be the father. You _will_ be the mother. Ranosa is dead, and I can stay in the Iliac no longer, I _must_ return to my homeland. My maid, Anara, will be at the old room in Daggerfall, with the infant. If you're not there to get it in three months, Anara will likely throw the thing in the rubbish._  
_Empty threat? Probably. Still, she needs a mother, and you owe me a big favor._

_-Endryn_

Lellynhall sighed, and folded the note carefully. On the back, she noticed a nearly illegible postscript that she'd missed before.

"By the way, her name is Nelezavra, and it'll remain that way. Register her with it at the Imperial City. I want her to grow up Imperial."

Until reading this, Lellynhall had already come up with a dozen names for the child, most of them improper to say aloud. This simplified things, she thought, putting the note away.  
But, why the Imperial City? "I want her to grow up Imperial" was a rather odd thing for Endryn to have written. Endryn _hated_ the Empire, and even more, its capital.  
The driver of the carriage brought the horses to a halt, and stepped down onto the road leading to the Imperial City and spoke with a Legionnaire manning a toll post at Weye. The driver showed the soldier a series of papers and pointed to the small set of covered wagons tied to the carriage. The driver was waved along and got back to his position, reins in hand.  
The carriage eased forward, and soon they were on the bridge, headed towards the mighty City, Heart of the Empire.  
"To the Market District?" the driver turned and asked.  
"To the Market District," she replied.

Lellynhall fell backwards onto a bed, the first she'd felt in months. The beds at the Merchant's Inn were far from exquisite, but were still a welcome change. The gold amassed from her exploits in the Iliac was now safely deposited in an Imperial bank after much arguing about taxes and fees with the City's bankers, and the child Nelezavra was now an official citizen of the Empire, after another long bout of arguing with the local census and excise agents. The looks she got from the clients were still strong in her mind. A young Redguard woman clad in ebony armor, arguing with officials, a Dunmer infant clinging to her breast, crying. Their responses were only natural, she thought. It wasn't that the adventures of the day yielded this general response that bothered her, it's that she knew, if she were to decide to raise the child to adulthood, she would have to endure those looks for _years_.  
Still, she was bound to Endryn's request far stronger than she would have liked. A chapter of her history she'd vowed to forget was now reopened against her will.  
It was not an accident that Lellynhall neglected to list herself as legal guardian to Nelezavra, instead opting for the gray area of 'temporary caretaker'. She wanted to be able to run away at any moment, and she already had vague plans in mind to do so.  
Plans she was not likely to act on, she admitted. With Nelezavra being cared for by a kind old woman she'd met earlier in the day, Lellynhall drifted off into sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

The child grew all too quickly, Lellynhall thought. Already she was forming coherent sentences and walking everywhere she went. Lellynhall knew she could not raise her with the daily visits she had given to this point. She would actually have to care for her herself.

Her maid and appointed nanny, an old Imperial by the name of Peregrina, the same woman she'd met in the Merchant's Inn three years ago, would agree, for she had grown tired of caring for the child so extensively.  
Lellynhall had taken a home in Anvil in order to raise the child. The city was a good choice, close to the docks, should she ever decide to run, and had many Dunmer families, should Nelezavra ever feel the need to mingle with her own kind as she grew older. Whether or not they would accept her was another matter.

Despite swearing off the life, Lellynhall found it very difficult to live as a normal woman, and mother, should. She renewed her old membership in the Fighters Guild, and found herself doing contracts again, mostly small jobs, but, on occasion, she would feel the itch far stronger, and would take the hard jobs, the most dangerous of the lot. While few and far between, in her two years in Anvil, she had been tasked with wiping out three entire tribes of goblins that had moved into local mines, and had searched four separate Aylied ruins at the request of clients. Still, it never felt enough.

And it probably never would be.

"Could you read me a story?" Nelezavra asked her one evening as she was sent off to bed.

Lellynhall looked around the hall, hoping to spot Peregrina, and pass the responsibility off to her.

"I'm sure Peregrina would be happy to."

"Perry's sleeping," the girl said with a tone of finality, taking Lellynhall by the hand.

"Oh, well, I suppose I have the time..."

And with that, Lellynhall found herself sitting at the edge of the girl's bed, a book in her hands. At first, she was embarrassed to read it, especially the parts that called for the reader to mime the sound of a drum, and, glancing ahead, noticed with dread that she'd have to sing as well. Still, as the story went on, Nelezavra looked overcome with glee, and burst with laughter at each "klo klo" of the drums, which Lellynhall didn't find to be repelling or obnoxious, as she thought she might.

"Roll me down down down to the river that welcomes me," she forced herself to sing, Nelezavra joining in, knowing the words by heart.

"I am a Welcome Stone," Lellynhall sang with a bit more comfort and found herself grinning here and there, much to her surprise. The evening went on in this way for some time, till eventually Nelezavra began to drift to sleep.

"'Look how silly it is!'," she whispered, book still in hand. "'Water is the silliest thing!' And with that, the rock started to laugh'..."

Looking over, Lellynhall saw that the child's breathing had slowed to that of a deep sleep, and shut the book. She went to tuck the girl in, but found herself staring for the longest time.

Had she been a Redguard, or a human child at all, Lellynhall would have been alarmed by her thinness, how delicate of frame she seemed. But she was no human, and for the first time Lellynhall thought of the implications of that. She could become a danger to herself, she thought, remembering the Dunmer affinity for destructive magic. She made a mental note to ask a representative of the Mages Guild the next day about how children handle these things. She would also consult the local schools to ask when she ought to enroll the girl.

With all these thoughts, thoughts going farther into the future with each second, Lellynhall began to feel ill. Her face belied panic, and she seemed to reach for a sword that wasn't there. After a moment, she left the room with a hand clutching her stomach, leaving the candles lit and the girl outside her blanket. She stumbled out the back door and into the city.

For the next three days, Lellynhall busied herself with a particularly risky contract for the Fighters Guild in an attempt to restore the distance between herself and the toddler. Feeling as though she crossed a boundary she was not made to cross, Lellynhall lost herself in the battle before her.

She swung her sword, a gaudy, Daedric thing in the style of Akaviri blades, and tore through the chest of a bandit, dropping him to the floor. The remaining three dashed off into the darkness of the cave.

Lellynhall extinguished the lone torch that adorned the wall and dropped to a crouch, reaching into her haversack. After a moment of feeling around she produced a small vial, uncorked it, and downed its contents.

Lellynhall removed her boots and secured them to her sides as she waited for the potion to take effect. Soon, the darkness she perceived gave way to light and she pressed on, sword in hand, careful not to make a noise. She easily found the three men, and drove her blade through the back of the closest one. Pulling her sword free, she swung at the other's neck, connecting in a spray of blood. Lellynhall set her eyes upon the remaining one, but had lost track of him.

From behind her came a sudden blinding light which turned the effects of her potion against her. She spun around, utterly blind, and swung ahead of her. Her sword slashed uselessly against stone and she felt a thin dagger slip between a gap in the plates of her armor and into her flesh. Her breath seemed to escape from her lungs, and she felt her head grow light. Still, she turned and swung, this time missing both the wall and her target. She fell to her knees as the dagger slipped into her flesh a second time and concentrated all of her thoughts onto a ring she wore on her right hand. The blinding light faded instantly to an innocuous glow and Lellynhall swung with all her remaining strength at the silhouette beside her, nearly cleaving the head from the body.

Gasping, she grabbed at her wounds and collapsed on her stomach. The light slowly faded with the bandit's death, and it took a moment to realize that she was not simply falling unconscious. Struggling to focus on a second ring, Lellynhall felt her wounds seal quickly and painfully. Her bleeding was done, but that had left would take its time to return. Lellynhall slept.

A dozen hours later, Lellynhall awoke, the pain in her sides still too much to bear. While she slept, she dreamt of Nelezavra. The mood, details, and context of the dream eluded her, but the subject remained.

Lifting herself from the ground slowly she examined the corpses of the bandits, already beginning to smell. From the now headless Altmer she removed a ring, and set off for Anvil.

By nightfall Lellynhall returned home and slipped inside as quietly as she could. Once in her room, the door locked behind her, she lit a candle and removed her cloak, sword, and armor, locking it all away in a chest below her bed.

Removing her shirt, she approached her mirror, inspecting the gashes at her sides. With a sigh, she reached into a chest and brought out a new shirt, this one free of blood. She slipped it on and tip-toed to Nelezavra's room.  
She was sleeping, naturally. In her arms she clutched the book Lellynhall had read her just a few nights before; a dying candle sat on the stand beside her bed.

After a moment's hesitation she tucked the girl in and kissed her forehead as lightly as she could manage.


	3. Chapter 3

"Get up, mongrel."

The blow struck deep. Nelezavra felt it down in her bones, and her muscles ached and burned. She lifted herself against the wall, easing into a stand, her bare feet digging into the sand of the beach. The children before her were roughly her age, with the exception of the lead boy, an Altmer of about eleven years.

"Don't you ever get tired of this, Gerrick?" Nelezavra asked, trying to hide her sideways glances.

"That's Lor-" the Altmer boy began, raising the thick stick he held in his hands like a staff.

"'Lord' Gerrick, got ya," Nelezavra interrupted. "No thanks, Gerry."

She spit at his shoes, but only a bit of blood came out. She wasn't sure if this made her seem tougher or weaker in their eyes.

Wenne, a Bosmer girl of about eight, readied a rock in her hand.

"How about we end this, everyone?"

The rest of the children, two Dunmer and an Orc, nodded and readied rocks of their own.

Gerrick pushed Wenne against the wall alongside Nelezavra. Nel dodged the girl, not moving enough for the others to suspect that she'd be trying to escape.

"_I _make the plans," shouted Gerrick to Wenne. The Orc nodded, standing by the boy, but the other two were not so sure.

Still careful, Nel sidled to the end of the wall, where the sand ran high, and grabbed two hand-fulls of the stuff.

Wenne began to shout, and Gerrick raised his stick, the others watched them closely. It was then that Nel began to walk off, trying to look as casual as she could, but she watched closely how their shadows moved in front of her by the light of the sunset.

"Hey!" one of the children shouted. Already Nel was fifteen paces away, and she laughed as they gave chase back to the docks of the city.

Once the ground ahead of her looked even, she began to run backward, and threw the sand at her pursuers.

* * *

By the time she reached home, evening was already upon the coastal city. She slipped into the large house as quietly as she could, but discovered Lellynhall was not only home, but still awake. A rare thing, especially lately.

The past five years were relatively kind to Lellynhall. She still had roughly the same look as the day she decided to raise the girl. A look of pride, fierceness and determination, all set on features of about average appearance. When she smiled, which happened a bit more these days, she could even look a bit pretty.

Nel was breathing hard. Now that she'd been caught, she felt no need to hide the fact.

"Fighting again?" Lellynhall asked, not bothering to look up from the book she held in her hands. There was a bit of disappointment in her voice.

"It was Gerrick again. I thought you said you spoke to his mom..." Nel trailed off at the end, trying to make it seem like she was chastising her, rather than asking for an explanation.

"She said she'd talk to him. Doubt she did."

Nel pulled herself up to Lellynhall's chair. She thought how to phrase her next question, but decided nothing fancy in her words would help persuade her mother.

"Lellyn, teach me how to fight."

She actually looked up from her book this time.

"This again?"

"I've been trying to learn on my own..." she pointed to her bruised eye.

"So you started that fight?"

Nel snapped her finger back down to her side.

"...I didn't think he'd call all his friends. We made a deal that it'd be a fair fight."

"I hope you won't make deals like that again," Lellyn shook her head and went back to reading.

Nel sat on the arm of the chair and swayed her legs back and forth.

"...So will you?"

Lellyn sighed, and tossed her book on the living room table. She seemed angry, but Nel always had a hard time telling.

"I'll get you up early," she still sounded angry, but she kissed Nel on the cheek and locked herself up in her room for the night.

* * *

This was a whole new kind of early for Nelezavra. The sun had only just started to poke itself up out of the sea on the horizon, and she'd already been busy for what seemed like hours. Lazily, she followed her mother into the woods north of town. Nothing in the forest seemed awake at this hour.

Lellynhall stopped in front of a small, dead tree, which could not have been much more than a sapling in life, and reached into her pack. She pulled out a hatchet and handed it to Nel.

"I though you were going to teach me to sword-fight?" said Nel, taking the hatchet, nearly a full-size axe in her hands.

"I don't trust you with a blade yet, even in practice combat. You'll need a wooden one," Lellyn gestured toward the sapling.

"Don't they sell those at Hirrus' place...?" Nel complained, rubbing her eyes.

"You'll appreciate this one much more. Now get chopping."

Nel sighed and took the hatchet to the tree. After about twenty minutes of work, she paused to catch her breath.

"I should have asked you to teach me how to fist-fight," she panted.

"We'll do that too. Now come on, it's nearly down, give it a good push."

Doing just that, the small tree fell to the ground, and Lellyn pulled out a length of rope, tying it to the fallen tree's lower branches. She turned the rope over to Nel.

"Now we go back."

Nel sighed and took the rope in hand.

The sun had gained its footing in the sky by the time Nel and her mother made it back to the city wall. The guards up on the battlements could hardly help but chuckle at the sight.

Lellyn took out the hatchet once more, along with her small, white-bound book.

"Remove the branches now."

Another sigh marked Nel's compliance. Once that was done, she was instructed to cut the trunk down the middle, and then the two parts in half. It was long, grueling work, but she finally felt like she was making progress. Once the two halves had been properly thinned, her mother handed her a fair-sized knife to carve them into the appropriate shape. Two or so hours of work passed, and Nel had herself two passable wooden swords. She held them in her hands, clearly impressed with herself. Lellyn made a few finishing touches, mostly to the grips, giving them pommels and small guards, and wrapped the grips in leather.

"Do we get to practice now?" asked Nel, thrilled at the new "sword" she held in her hand.

"Yes."

* * *

Once home, Nel and Lellyn sparred in the small yard to the back of the house. Lellyn let the girl take the offensive first, letting her strike as much as she wanted, and promising her a reward if she could land a blow on her. Naturally, Nel never so much as grazed her mother, and begged for a break after forty-five minutes of hacking away.

A new maid, a young Breton woman named Alouette, had replaced Peregrina a year back, and now served the two a massive lunch. Nel tried to finish as quickly as possible, eager to get back to practicing.

"What are we going to be doing next?" she asked.

"You'll have to defend," Lellyn smiled.

Nel laughed and set to eating even faster.

"My aren't you two having fun!" Alouette shouted a few seconds after the exchange, causing Nel to choke on her food in surprise. The young woman came at a cheap rate, but she seemed decidedly "off" to Lellyn. She was trustworthy, but more than a little scatter-brained.

After the meal, the two practiced till sundown, and topped it all off with an equally massive dinner. Alouette seemed a good cook, at the very least.

"So when do I learn certain moves?" Nel asked, taking her meal a little more slowly this time.

"Moves?" Lellyn smiled and nodded her head.

"Yeah, all you've been doing is showing me some form."

"That's all there really is to it. If you have the right form, and you know how to deal with someone attacking you, and you know how to attack, then you'll be fine."

"Oh..." Nel held her head in her hand while she shoveled another fork-full of noodles into her mouth.

"Of course, all we've been doing so far is sword to sword. There's a lot more to learn. I'll teach you how to fight and defend against shields, spears, staves, axes, maces, hammers, arrows, halberds and all the rest in good time."

"...What about magic?" the girl asked after a moment of thinking about what styles she'd need to combat these things.

"Fighting mages is a bit different. I'll teach you that as well, if you'd like."

Nel shook her head.

"No, I mean, what if I want to do magic when I fight?"

Lellyn laughed, and shook her head.

"You don't seem to care about those expensive lessons old Yeomsley gives you."

"Ugh!" Nel didn't care to think about her tutor, and shuddered at the name. "He's never taught me any spells, he just goes on about how it works."

"Do better in his lessons, and stop playing your little tricks on him, and I'll get him to teach you a spell or two."

Nel's eyes lit up.

"Really?"

"If you promise me you'll behave."

The girl clasped her hands in front of her.

"Even Destruction?"

"Maybe. Prove to me that you'll be responsible, and I just might allow it."

Out went her small hand, and Lellynhall took it in hers.

"Deal."


	4. Chapter 4

"Is this your first time?"

"Technically..." Nel panted, sitting on the edge of the cot.

"'Technically'?," the handsome young Imperial raised an eyebrow as he removed his shirt.

"Well, I was a kid, so it wasn't exactly the same."

"Ah," he nodded, hand against the wall, "That makes sense. Same happened to me. That's how it all starts, eh? The curiosity of children. Not always a bad thing; working with kids tends to be rather rewarding."

"Nimble and seemingly innocent," Nel agreed, removing her jacket and gloves, rubbing her bruised eye. "My mother showed me around once after a little experimenting of mine, though. Funny how my first thought was how I'd get out of the shackles."

"Mind of a miscreant," the man tapped his temple.

"...So, who are you? I'd like to have your name before I see you nude. I'm Nel," she put her hand out.

"Mitaeus," the Imperial took her hand and shook it cordially, "Ex-Legionnaire."

"'Ex'?" Nel laughed and shot a skeptical glance, "You don't even look old enough for the Legion to begin with."

"I get that," Mitaeus kicked off his shoes and undid his belt.

"So how'd you get 'exxed'?" Nel asked, lifting her shirt over her head, watching the Imperial's pants drop.

"Oh, this and that," he gestured abstractly, slipping off his ring and putting it into his mouth, "Mostly that."

"'That'?" Nel asked, undoing her own belt, and slipping her own ring into her mouth.

"I'd rather not say."

"Then how about the 'this'?"

"Well those were the _other_ charges," Mitaeus mumbled on account of the ring in his mouth, "All fraudulent, mind you."

"Naturally," Nel smiled as she rid herself of the last of her clothes and stood from the bed.

"Alright, enough chit-chat, into the showers!" came a harsh voice from outside the cell, "Get nice and clean, we aint want yer filth and diseases in here!"

"A healthy prisoner is a happy prisoner," Mitaeus laughed as the two strode out into the hall, past the menacing prison guard, who inspected them for a moment, then waved them into the small prison shower.

Nel and Mitaeus stood under the falling water in the small brick room for a minute or so before saying a word. The water was surprisingly warm, and felt nice on the skin in the drafty little dungeon.

"If not for your race," Mitaeus handed Nel a crude bar of soap from his side of the room, and took the ring out of his mouth, "I'd marvel at your lack of modesty."

"I could say the same," Nel said, removing the ring from her own mouth and taking the soap, scrubbing her thin arms and legs.

"We Imperials _are _rather in love with ourselves," he gestured to his body, a gangly and average one by most standards, despite his time in the Legion, "and who _wouldn't _be proud of this?"

Nel nearly dropped the black ring down the grate as she laughed. She pointed at her own body, dark in the minimal light of the shower. She'd not gotten any fuller since childhood; her ribs were still visible despite how many of Alouette's meals she shoveled down her throat, and her recent increase in height only made her look that much thinner. Still, she liked her body, despite it looking very much like a boy's. Of breasts and hips she had none, and her physique would best be described as 'lean'.

"And I've won pageants with this setup here."

Mitaeus chuckled. The water ceased to fall; what little remained in the cell fell loudly down the grate below their feet, and footsteps approached the door. The two slipped on their rings and nodded to each other.

"Now the part I signed up for," Mitaeus smirked.

As the door opened and the guard stepped in, a violent light shot from the rings on their hands. The guard clawed at his eyes and fell to his knees as the two prisoners dashed out into the corridor, now only partially visible.


End file.
